eBay Free Listing Fees Conceal A Higher Total Charge

eBay already offers free listings for local classified ads and often runs listing fee specials, but from April it will offer a permanent option of no listing fees on auctions with a start price of 99 cents or less. However, you might be well advised to avoid that choice.

As we've pointed out many times on Lifehacker, listing fees aren't the most important factor to consider when selling an item, or the biggest source of profit for eBay: that's the final value fee charged if you sell an item. Items sold using this arrangement will attract a final value fee of 7.9%, which is much higher than the 5.25% eBay charges on standard listings. If your item sells for more than $15, you'll pay more this way than you would with a standard 30 cent listing.

The zero-fee option will be restricted to 15 items a month, and won't be available to Stores users or other professionals. If you really don't want to spend any money up front, this might sound appealing, but bear in mind eBay will likely make more money out of you if you do actually sell your goods for any meaningful amount.

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Comments

Nodeity Guest

Feb 17, 2011, 1:52pm

I would truly love to dump eBay,.. it has become a global giant that answers only to itself. Unfortunately the choices for competition in OZ are very few and then poorly advertised and ill frequented. "Oztion" which is now "Quicksales" is a complete waste of time and Classified sale are too parochial. :[

When I sold my jet ski, the sales didn't work out a few times and mistakenly I didn't handle the transaction in eBay correctly. I contacted them and told them it was a mistake, never heard back from them and they just charged my credit card. So they have charged me 3 times to sell my jet ski, around $60. Total about $180.

Actually I didn't even know it was going to be $180, they told me it was free to List my JetSki. Then they give a invoice after the transaction. Very Dodgy.